"hunc (_i. e._ Becket Cancellarium) successurum sibi sperat et orat, Hic est carnificum qui jus cancellat iniquum, Quos habuit reges Anglia capta diu, Esse putans reges, quos est perpessa, tyrannos Plus veneratur eos, qui nocuere magis." _Entheticus_, l. 1295. Did Becket decide against the Norman laws by the Anglo-Saxon? Has any one guessed the meaning of the rest of John's verses on the Chancellor and his Court? I confess myself baffled. [32] Roger de Pontigny, p. 100. [33] In the memorable letter of Gilbert Foliot, Dr. Lingard observes that Mr. Berington has proved this letter to be spurious. I cannot see any force in Mr. Berington's arguments, and should certainly have paid more deference to Dr. Lingard himself if he had examined the question. It seems, moreover (if I rightly understand Dr. Giles, and I am not certain that I do), that it exists in more than one MS. of Foliot's letters. He has printed it as unquestioned; no very satisfactory proceeding in an editor. The conclusive argument for its authenticity with me is this: Who, after Becket's death and canonization, would have ventured or thought it worth while to forge such a letter? To whom was Foliot's memory so dear, or Becket's so hateful, as to reopen the whole strife about his election and his conduct? Besides, it seems clear that it is either a rejoinder to the long letter addressed by Becket to the clergy of England (Giles, iii. 170), or that letter is a rejoinder to Foliot's. Each is a violent party pamphlet against the other, and of great ability and labor. [34] Foliot's nearest relatives, if not himself, were Scotch; one of them had forfeited his estate for fidelity to the King of Scotland.--Epis. ii. cclxxviii. [35] Read his letters before his elevation to the see of London. [36] See, _e.g._, Epis. cxxxi., in which he informs Archbishop Theobald that the Earl of Hereford held intercourse with William Beauchamp, excommunicated by the Primate. "Vilescit anathematis authoritas, nisi et communicantes excommunicatis corripiat digna severitas." The Earl of Hereford must be placed under anathema. [37] Lambeth, p. 91. The election of the Bishop of Hereford to London is confirmed by the Pope's permission to elect him (March 19) rogatu H. regis et Archep. Cantuarensis. A letter from Pope Alexander on his promotion rebukes him for _fasting too severely_.--Epist. ccclix. [38] Foliot, in a letter to Pope Alexander, maintains the superiority of Canterbury over York.--cxlix. [39] See on the change in his habits, Lambeth, p. 48; also the strange story, in Grim, of a monk who declared himself commissioned by a preterhuman person of terrible countenance to warn the Chancellor not to dare to appear in the choir, as he had done, in a secular dress.--p. 16.